Summary
A small timber-framed hen house, the surviving element of a former contiguous range of listed farm buildings, the other parts of which either no longer survive or in the case of the former granary, have suffered damage which has rendered them incomplete.
Reasons for Designation
The Hen House at Old Green Street Farm, Little Hadham is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest:
* for its significance, together with the Farmhouse, South Barn and C18 Implement Shed at Old Green Street Farm as a component of an evolved farmstead plan. The mid- to late-C18 date places them firmly within the early years of the Agricultural Revolution, and may illustrate an increase in productivity and prosperity as a result of agricultural innovation.
Architectural interest:
* for its surviving constructional characteristics and carpentry detailing, and its rarity as a vernacular building type.
History
Green Street is a small hamlet, a scatter of houses and farms around a green, through which runs the main street. C19 maps, from the tithe map of 1844 onwards, indicate that Old Green Street Farm, to the south-west of the green, was the settlement's most substantial farmstead, consisting of a C16 house with C17 and C18 farm buildings on three sides forming an evolved courtyard plan: these included an implement shed and three barns, one of which formed part of a continuous range consisting of granary, barn, stables and hen house. A long pond immediately to the east of this range is thought to represent one arm of a moat, suggesting the presence of a farmstead here from the medieval period; another possible section can be seen to the south of the south barn. In 1976 these farmstead buildings survived almost as shown on the tithe map of 1844.
In 1985, a number of buildings at the farmstead site were listed, including the continuous range of buildings formed by the granary, barn, stables and hen house. Since then, however, the barn to the west of the site has been demolished, while the C16 and C17 barn to the south became a separate property.
In 2014 the barn central to the continuous range of buildings to the north was blown down in a gale, leaving only the gable ends, which also formed gables to the granary and stables. In 2017, the stables section of the surviving range suffered further storm damage and was demolished, leaving the hen house as a detached structure, and the former granary as a two-bay remnant with its south-east gable missing, it having formed part of the barn, granary, stable and hen house range.
Details
A hen house, one of two now separate surviving elements of a former range of formerly four contiguous buildings that originally included a barn, stables and granary dating to the mid- to late C18.
MATERIALS: The hen house is timber-framed, with a weather-boarded exterior set below a thatch roof covering.
EXTERIOR: The hen house is located in the north-east section of the former farmstead and formerly formed the south-easterly end element of the original range of four contiguous buildings. It is a low, single-story gabled building with two doors and a small opening at ground floor level.
INTERIOR: The hen house is divided into two spaces, each with their own entrance. The roof is constructed of coupled rafters which oversail the wallplate, except for the principal rafters which rest on posts. The thatch is laid directly onto widely-spaced laths. In the south end is a timber trough attached to the wall, while the north space has nesting boxes made of machine-cut timber boards. The walls are constructed of weather boarding attached to studs with straight diagonal braces.
